French and English are backing excise (5)
I believe the answer is:
erase
'excise' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both to do with contact as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'french and english are backing' is the wordplay.
'french and english' becomes 'es' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'backing' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'es'+'are'='esare'
'esare' written backwards gives 'ERASE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for erase that I've seen before include "Rub out, cancel" , "score" , "Blot out" , "Efface" , "Blank out" .)