Punishment for pupils of French with pronounced anxiety (9)
I believe the answer is:
detention
'punishment' is the definition.
(I know that detention is a type of punishment)
'french with pronounced anxiety' is the wordplay.
'french with' becomes 'de' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'pronounced' indicates a 'sounds like' (homophone) clue.
'anxiety' becomes 'tension' (I've seen this before).
'tension' sounds like 'tention'.
'de'+'tention'='DETENTION'
'for pupils of' is the link.
I am not very happy about this link. Some or all of it may be part of another bit of the clue.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for detention that I've seen before include "After-school punishment" , "Arrest; school punishment" , "Custody" , "Confinement" .)