Peace, as occupied by the French (7)
I believe the answer is:
silence
'peace' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'as occupied by the french' is the wordplay.
'as' becomes 'since' (I've seen this before).
'occupied by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'the french' becomes 'le'.
'since' placed around 'le' is 'SILENCE'.
(Other definitions for silence that I've seen before include "Hush!" , "There's nothing heard" , "Period of peace" , "may be required in court" , "Quiet" .)