And pushing the thrust levers to said intermediate position would have taken place about six seconds before TOGA thrust was commanded. Unfortunately there is no evidence of it on the flight recorders. As the Airbus presentation on Habsheim phrases it:
Only one thrust lever movement is shown after flight idle is selected at the commencement of the descent, and concurrently with the clicks being heard, at 4.5 seconds before the aircraft enters the trees.
Possible explanations for this discrepancy (ignoring the extreme assumptions that Asseline ist just a liar or that the whole investigation was rigged to protect Airbus):
- Asseline honestly believes that he commanded intermediate thrust at the transition from descent to level flight, but he never really did.
- He did, but the thrust levers failed in such a way that not even thrust lever angle as recorded by the DFDR reflected the change.
And no, I don't think that both scenarios are equally likely.