Nation embraces popular French playwright (6)
I believe the answer is:
racine
'french playwright' is the definition.
(Jean Racine)
'nation embraces popular' is the wordplay.
'nation' becomes 'race' (I've seen this before).
'embraces' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'popular' becomes 'in'.
'race' going around 'in' is 'RACINE'.
(Other definitions for racine that I've seen before include "in Wisconsin" , "French dramatist, author of Phedre, d. 1699" , "French writer" .)