Sneak a quarter to somewhere in France (6)

I believe the answer is:

grasse

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'sneak' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I can't see?

'a quarter to somewhere in france' is the wordplay.
'a quarter' becomes 'se'.
'to' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'somewhere in france' becomes 'gras' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'se' after 'gras' is 'GRASSE'.

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in the Evening Standard.

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