Said in France to be the same (5)
I believe the answer is:
ditto
'be the same' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'said in france to' is the wordplay.
'said in france' becomes 'dit' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'dit'+'to'='DITTO'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ditto that I've seen before include "Repeat (instruction)" , "Dot it for the same again" , "Repeat the word(s) above" , "Likewise" , "Copy" .)