The Pope goes out to meet the French nation (6)
I believe the answer is:
people
'nation' is the definition.
(both can mean a race of people)
'the pope goes out to meet the french' is the wordplay.
'goes out' indicates anagramming the letters.
'to meet' says to put letters next to each other.
'the french' becomes 'le' ('the' in French).
'pope' is an anagram of 'peop'.
'peop'+'le'='PEOPLE'
(Other definitions for people that I've seen before include "Nation" , "Newspaper" , "Folk; citizens" , "Community" , "Men, women and children" .)