Pain sandwiches the French ripping to shreds (7)
I believe the answer is:
slating
'ripping to shreds' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'pain sandwiches the french' is the wordplay.
'pain' becomes 'sting' (sting is a kind of pain).
'sandwiches' means one lot of letters goes inside another (to sandwich is to block something in).
'the french' becomes 'la' ('the' in French).
'sting' placed around 'la' is 'SLATING'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for slating that I've seen before include "severe criticism" , "roof material" , "Covering" .)