Inside information received from the French middleman last week (4)
I believe the answer is:
leak
'middleman last week' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'inside information received from the french' is the wordplay.
'inside' means to look at the middle letters.
'information' becomes 'gen' (gen can informally mean information).
'received' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'from the french' becomes 'lak' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The central letter of 'gen' is 'e'.
'e' placed within 'lak' is 'LEAK'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for leak that I've seen before include "Accidental hole allowing liquid to escape" , "Seep; disclose" , "Divulge" , "Lose water" , "Liquid loss sounds like a vegetable" .)