Borders crossing close to free French city (5)
I believe the answer is:
reims
'french city' is the definition.
(city in France)
'borders crossing close to' is the wordplay.
'borders' becomes 'rims' (rim can mean an edge or border).
'crossing' means one lot of letters goes inside another (to cross can mean to go over or around).
'close to' becomes 'e' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'rims' enclosing 'e' is 'REIMS'.
'free' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. It may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for reims that I've seen before include "Champagne capital (variant spelling)" , "City of northeast France" , "City, the traditional site for crowning French kings" , "city in NE France" .)