A basic knowledge of French, German and/or Latin will help you solve these bad multilingual puns. A mention of a French-speaking person or place in the clue means you have to translate something to or from French, e.g. in "Chief gives a hand to a Parisian (4)" , the "to a Parisian" bit is a clue that you have to translate "hand" into French = MAIN = "chief" or "principal" in English. Similarly, in "Angela Merkel says this is bad (4)" the mention of "Angela Merkel" is a clue that you have to translate "bad" to or from German. "Bad" is the German for "bath" , which is the answer (3)