North Sea region the French backed? Nonsense (8)
I believe the answer is:
doggerel
'nonsense' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'north sea region the french backed?' is the wordplay.
'north sea region' becomes 'dogger' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'the french' becomes 'le' ('the' in French).
'backed?' says the letters should be written backwards.
'le' written backwards gives 'el'.
'dogger'+'el'='DOGGEREL'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for doggerel that I've seen before include "Bad verse - of canine beginnings?" , "Badly written verse" , "Nonsense verse" , "Trite verse" , "Terrible poetry" .)