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Wikipedia says that this is a myth, originated in Star Trek in 1991. It is quite wrong about the latter - I first came across this story in the 60s!

(That's the basis of my @16)

Thanks Chrise and Skyewalker, I know that sabot is a wooden shoe, and I've already had a smile at SW's #16.
My ? was as to whether that was what Paul intended in his #3.

Sorry, Mattrom. I can't parse it either.

The period when French footwear could cripple? (8)

At the risk of being pedantic / commenting in the wrong place etc, some of the clues here are just being literal. A saboteur was a French textile worker who protested against new machinery by throwing his wooden shoes into the machines. Hence sabotage, and also ' clogging up ' comes from the same source.

Apologies, chrise, you'd already given the definition. Hadn't spotted it

No problem malcolm.

Wiki rejecting the story is odd, though! See "Etymology" here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabotage

Humbug. I heard the French textile story from the ' Dictionary Corner ' on Countdown, and you don't mess with them...

According to my OED, the origin of the word is unknown but, in Middle English, a "clog" was "a block of wood to impede an animal's movement", so not originally an item of footwear, or "sabot", which suggests "clogging up" etc., may have existed before the word "sabotage".