Fought the French -- dust's settling around (7)
I believe the answer is:
tussled
'fought' is the definition.
(tussling is a kind of fighting)
'the french dust's settling around' is the wordplay.
'the french' becomes 'le'.
'settling' indicates anagramming the letters (settle can mean to solve or sort out).
'around' is an insertion indicator.
'dusts' anagrammed gives 'tussd'.
'le' put into 'tussd' is 'TUSSLED'.
(Other definitions for tussled that I've seen before include "Struggled in a confused way" , "was struggling" , "Fought" .)