Nation said to peep at the French (6)
I believe the answer is:
people
'nation' is the definition.
(both can mean a race of people)
'said to peep at the french' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'the french' could be 'le' ('the' in French) and 'le' is found within the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for people that I've seen before include "Mortals" , "Humans in general" , "Persons in general" , "Population" , "See 6" .)