Spain and France keep striving (6)
I believe the answer is:
effort
'striving' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'spain and france keep' is the wordplay.
'spain' becomes 'e' (abbreviation for Espana).
'and' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'france' becomes 'f'.
'keep' becomes 'fort' (I've seen this before).
'e'+'f'+'fort'='EFFORT'
(Other definitions for effort that I've seen before include "force?" , "For eft (anag.)" , "The use of physical or mental energy" , "Energy exerted to achieve something" , "Attempt - hard work" .)