First person in France to accept passable pun? (4)
I believe the answer is:
joke
'pun?' is the definition.
(punning is a kind of joking)
'first person in france to accept passable' is the wordplay.
'first person in france' becomes 'je' ('I' - the grammatical first person - in French).
'to accept' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'passable' becomes 'ok'.
'je' enclosing 'ok' is 'JOKE'.
(Other definitions for joke that I've seen before include "bit of humour" , "Witticism, jest" , "Gag" , "someone inadequate" , "Pun, maybe" .)