You may be aware of claims (on the French forum) that the particular configuration (weight + flight level + assumed full aft CG) was allegedly very hard or impossible to fly with A/P off in the simulator.
No, not aware, thanks.
Which (degraded) control law were they assuming?
Was this in still air or simulated turbulence?
PJ2 and others estimate c.of g. @ 37% ~ 2% fwd of aft limit at the time of the accident