Giggle as torch reveals French article (7)
I believe the answer is:
chortle
'giggle' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'torch reveals french article' is the wordplay.
'reveals' indicates anagramming the letters (I've seen 'revealed' mean this).
'french article' becomes 'le' (definite article in French).
'torch' with letters rearranged gives 'chort'.
'chort'+'le'='CHORTLE'
'as' is the link.
(Other definitions for chortle that I've seen before include "Loud gleeful chuckle" , "Joyous chuckle" , "Titter" , "Noisy gleeful laugh" , "Laugh out loud" .)