Initially gossip about the French parties (5)
I believe the answer is:
galas
'parties' is the definition.
(a gala is a party or social event)
'initially gossip about the french' is the wordplay.
'initially' indicates taking the first letters.
'the french' becomes 'las' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The initial letters of 'gossip about' is 'ga'.
'ga'+'las'='GALAS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for galas that I've seen is " Bashes".)