BigFrank,
I claim to accept the need for extreme prudence by the head of such an organisation in such circumstances as these.
I was however surprised that:
i) He said that he hadn't listened to the cockpit recording at all himself almost 8 hrs after it arrived on site.
ii) He refused to say if the voices were speaking in English or German
He's doing his job. The CVR is probably in Paris by now, being carefully disassembled, properly set up in a specially equipped sound proof room, then preferably having a full CVR team present to listen to the recorder.
That's the way it's done at the NTSB. I resume the French follow a very similar protocol.