She was first in the French reception (5)
I believe the answer is:
levee
'reception' is the definition.
(I know that levee is a type of reception)
'she was first in the french' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'she' could be 'eve' and 'eve' is located in the answer.
'the french' could be 'le' ('the' in French) and 'le' is found within the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for levee that I've seen before include "River bank reinforcement, particularly in the US" , "An embankment built to prevent a river from overflowing" , "Riverside embankment" , "protection for bank" , "Flood embankment" .)