In France nothing is put in to back the East (6)
I believe the answer is:
orient
'the east' is the definition.
('orient' can be a synonym of 'east')
'in france nothing is put in to back' is the wordplay.
'in france nothing' becomes 'rien' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'is put in' is an insertion indicator.
'back' says the letters should be written backwards.
'to' in reverse letter order is 'ot'.
'rien' going inside 'ot' is 'ORIENT'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for orient that I've seen before include "Far East" , "East; align" , "Adjust to surroundings" , "Align (in a particular direction)" , "Align relative to compass points" .)