Period of French helping (8)
I believe the answer is:
duration
'period' is the definition.
(I know that duration is a type of period)
'french helping' is the wordplay.
'french' becomes 'du' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'helping' becomes 'ration' (a ration is a serving or helping).
'du'+'ration'='DURATION'
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for duration that I've seen before include "Length of time" , "Period during which something continues" , "Around it (anag.)" , "Time scale" , "Term, span, time" .)