French director's Tesla stops as intended, in fact (9)
I believe the answer is:
statistic
'intended in fact' is the definition.
'statistic' can be an answer for 'fact' (I've seen this before). I am not certain of the 'intended in' bit.
'french director's tesla stops' is the wordplay.
'french' becomes 'sic' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'director's' becomes 'Tati's' (actor and director Jacques Tati).
'tesla' becomes 'T' (scientific unit).
'stops' means one lot of letters goes inside another (to stop can mean to block a gap).
'tatis'+'t'='tatist'
'sic' placed around 'tatist' is 'STATISTIC'.
'as' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for statistic that I've seen before include "Numerical fact" , "Data point" , "Piece of data" , "part of a table perhaps" , "E.g. crime figure" .)