It is very interesting that there has been no comment from Friedkin. Not exactly a guy that is shy about saying what is on his mind. Although the claim is he made that cut, it sure seems like something he would not have done. I recall the uproar in some places when he changed the color timing of the film which resulted in it being changed again to bring it back to something closer to what it looked like when it was released. In that case he said that something must have gone wrong because he claimed that the altered color timing that upset people was not what he had approved. 

Check out the Blu-ray of his very underrated and overlooked film, Sorcerer. It's absolutely beautiful and the jungle presents some stunning greens, which I think some people think he amped up when they did the transfer for HD. 

I do wonder why he is not commenting on this French Connection issue, it was really the film that put him on the map.