Sure enough, no one in Hong Kong had any record of any such request, and the station manager wasn't empowered to make an upgrade without Paris' agreement, which of course he didn't have.
AF, you have consistently lied , about the reason for the delay from Manchester, the "we will be leaving in 5 minutes", the luggage being re-tagged onto the Cathay flight, and the actions you said you had taken to make things better.

Au Revoir.