Merciful, the French guys in court (7)
I believe the answer is:
clement
'merciful' is the definition.
(associated in meaning)
'the french guys in court' is the wordplay.
'the french' becomes 'le'.
'guys' becomes 'men'.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'court' becomes 'ct'.
'le'+'men'='lemen'
'lemen' placed into 'ct' is 'CLEMENT'.
(Other definitions for clement that I've seen before include "Kindly (applied to weather)" , "Mild or balmy" , "Fine" , "not heavy" , "Temperate" .)