Official AF reaction to today's news -- the aircraft's instruments failed and the pilots reacted completely professionally.
Well, the exact words are:
It appears that the flight deck crew was monitoring the changing weather conditions and thus altered the flight path, that the initial problem was the failure of the speed probes which led to the disconnection of the autopilot and the loss of the associated piloting protection systems, and that the aircraft stalled at high altitude.
This seems to be an interpretive version of the events - what protections were 'lost'? Protections still exist in Alt - however they are not the same as in Normal.