Specimen maps reconstructed by the French (6)
I believe the answer is:
sample
'specimen' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'maps reconstructed by the french' is the wordplay.
'reconstructed' indicates an anagram.
'by' says to put letters next to each other.
'the french' becomes 'le' ('the' in French).
'maps' is an anagram of 'samp'.
'samp'+'le'='SAMPLE'
(Other definitions for sample that I've seen before include "Specimen; sound clip" , "Taste; specimen" , "Test piece" , "Small representative piece" , "Small part used to represent the whole" .)