Resolve shown by a French composer (7)
I believe the answer is:
unravel
'resolve' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'shown by a french composer' is the wordplay.
'shown by' says to put letters next to each other.
'a french' becomes 'un' ('a' in French).
'composer' becomes 'ravel' (I've seen this before).
'un' put next to 'ravel' is 'UNRAVEL'.
(Other definitions for unravel that I've seen before include "Solve the problem" , "Come undone; solve" , "Disentangle knitted wool or solve mystery" , "Become undone" , "Unpick, untangle" .)