One atlas in production for the French neighbours (8)
I believe the answer is:
italians
'the french neighbours' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'one atlas in production' is the wordplay.
'one' becomes 'i' (Roman numeral**).
'production' indicates an anagram.
'atlas'+'in'='atlasin'
'atlasin' is an anagram of 'talians'.
'i'+'talians'='ITALIANS'
'for' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for italians that I've seen before include "Natives of Tuscany, say" , "Romans, Florentines, etc." .)