Well, all really far too complicated! As I said in post #8, talk to ATC, point just west of KELON, dial in 2700' and arrange to be established on the STAR track inbound KELON just before it when you can then happily dial in 2500' and BINGO! No need for daring hold entries and 360s above hold level or whatever. KISS?
That misses the point a bit, BOAC, as does the debate about the hold protection. There seems little doubt that aircraft should and usually do end up at KELON at about 2500 ft.
spud3 was given a direct routing when level or levelling at FL80, then given clearance for the approach.
If something similar happened under US rules, you would indeed "talk to ATC", and request descent, presumably more and more assertively as KELON approached.
If something similar happened under Canadian rules, you would follow the procedures that spud3 set out regarding descent, without the need to talk further to ATC.
The issue is whether under French rules (and more generally, other ICAO states' rules) the clearance for the approach either
a) is implicitly an instruction to descend (and if so, to what level?)
or
b) the clearance for the approach does not override the instruction to maintain FL80, and the controller should have issued an explicit descent instruction to get the aircraft down to 2500 ft at KELON.
Practically, with good comms with ATC, there was no problem. There rarely is when you have the chance to say to ATC "did you mean X or Y?" The clarification took place when spud3 reported leaving FL80 and the controller acknowledged, didn't correct. It gets more interesting if spud3's comms had failed after receiving the clearance!