Old French city near ground around former capital (8)
I believe the answer is:
narbonne
'old french city' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't tell whether this works.
'near ground around former capital' is the wordplay.
'ground' is an anagram indicator ('grind' the letters into a new form).
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'former capital' becomes 'bonn' (I have seen 'old capital' mean 'bonn' so perhaps 'capital' could also mean 'bonn'. I am not sure about the 'former' bit.).
'near' is an anagram of 'nare'.
'nare' enclosing 'bonn' is 'NARBONNE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for narbonne that I've seen is " City in southern-west France".)