He’s French, or would be indeed, if not very (4)
I believe the answer is:
yves
'he's' is the definition.
'french or would be indeed if not very' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'very' could be 'v' (abbreviation) and 'v' is found in the answer.
'indeed' could be 'yes' (agreeing) and 'yes' is found in the remaining letters.
No letters remain.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for yves that I've seen before include "Frenchman maybe" , "Frenchman, so-called?" , "__ Saint Laurent, couturier, d. 2008" , "Montand, Fr. actor" , "-- Saint-Laurent, French fashion designer" .)