French veto in the past at new figure (7)
I believe the answer is:
nonagon
'figure' is the definition.
(shape or figure with 9 sides)
'french veto in the past at new' is the wordplay.
'french veto' becomes 'non' (French for 'no', a word which might veto something).
'in the past' becomes 'ago' (three years ago means three years in the past).
'at' says to put letters next to each other.
'new' becomes 'n' (common abbreviation eg NT for New Testament).
'non'+'ago'+'n'='NONAGON'
(Other definitions for nonagon that I've seen before include "Nine sided figure" , "Nine-sided shape" , "Nine-sided figure" , "Figure with nine sides" , "Figure with nine, twenty-one Dn" .)