Many wise words spoken on this event, but consider this, when looking at automation issues.
In the aftermath of this incident it was asked "why isn’t the calculation of fuel remaining versus fuel loaded compared against fuel expected to be consumed done by the gizmos"? Official answer from Toulouse was, "because we wanted to leave the pilots something to do". They had deliberately not automated this function, so they said. (This sits pretty oddly with their general philosophy hitherto.)
And now, apparently, in the wake of that incident, that function is now automated. Clearly some very muddled thinking going on here.
This is not to say that the pilots did, as the DGAC AD stated and Toulouse declares, mismanage the fuel. The leak was a big one, the guys spent a fair bit of time consulting base about the bizarre "oil temp low, oil press high" message. Then they idled that engine (instructed by Montreal to do so, rumours say, so no IFSD would get in the stats and put a crimp in their ETOPS). Not to prejudge the report findings but it is at least conceivable that they had monitored the fuel state recently and while chatting to Montreal, and then looking up "fuel imbalance" in the FCOM, the bulk of the loss had already taken place. By the time they got to the "don’t do this if fuel leak is suspected" what reason could they have for suspecting one?
However, somebody knows if they were heroes or goats. When power was cut after the second engine failed, the CVR will have stopped. So, whether or not they checked their fuel state in the last 30 minutes is not a mystery. It is, however, a secret. Three years, nearly, since the incident and no report! How is safety served by this?