Guardian genius

[mullingar]

Can anyone explain how European with uncle in spain (and the french) I'm not sure about whether this part belongs to a different answer, works out as EDICLE- It's a complicated puzzle where the defintions are separated from their cryptic partners so the other part of the answer is proteges which may mean pupils or french pupils more likely the former methinks. I hope this is comprehensible

[scrunge999]

The Spanish word for 'uncle' is 'tio' which would give ETIOLE (or ETIOLA) instead of EDICLE. But I can't find 'Etiole' (or 'Edicle') in the OED and I can't see any connection between 'proteges' and anything to do with etiolate. Could there be another definition that belongs to this part of the clue?

[mullingar]

Thank you scrunge. The first letter (P) in this case is unclued so the answer is Petiole not Pedicle as I had it -both mean stalk if that makes sense