Strike time before the French dispute (6)
I believe the answer is:
battle
'dispute' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'strike time before the french' is the wordplay.
'strike' becomes 'bat' (**).
'time' becomes 't'.
'before' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'the french' becomes 'le'.
'bat'+'t'+'le'='BATTLE'
(Other definitions for battle that I've seen before include "Sussex town" , "Naval engagement" , "Lengthy struggle" , "Fight between opponents" , "Fight between armies" .)