Exposes demands lodged by a French maiden (7)
I believe the answer is:
unmasks
'exposes' is the definition.
(unmasking is a kind of exposing)
'lodged by a french maiden' is the wordplay.
'lodged' becomes 'asks' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'a french' becomes 'un' ('a' in French).
'maiden' becomes 'm' (cricket abbreviation).
'un'+'m'='unm'
'asks' put after 'unm' is 'UNMASKS'.
'demands' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for unmasks that I've seen before include "Exposes, removes disguise" , "Removes domino" , "Exposes, shows up" , "lays oneself open" , "Reveals the true nature of" .)