Commandant Teste was scuttled at Toulon when the Germans invaded Vichy France in November 1942, but was refloated after the war and considered for conversion to an escort or training carrier.

[4] Commandant Teste had a two-shaft unit machinery layout with alternating boiler and engine rooms.

An upgrade to 5 m (16 ft 5 in) rangefinders was planned to improve the director's performance against surface targets, but was never carried out.

[7] Commandant Teste had a waterline armor belt with a maximum thickness of 5 cm (2.0 in) abreast the machinery spaces and was 3.76 m (12.3 ft) high.

It was partitioned in two by a bulkhead that incorporated the exhaust uptakes for the funnel and the ventilation trunking for the machinery spaces.

[12] The aircraft were moved on a system of wheeled trolleys running on Décauville rails that extended throughout each half-hangar to the quarterdeck at the rear of the ship.

The torpedo bombers would be moved to the quarterdeck where their wings would be extended and then they would be lowered into the water by the large crane at the very stern of the ship.

[14] Commandant Teste was designed to accommodate the naval version of the Farman F.60 Goliath torpedo bomber, but they were obsolete when she was commissioned in 1932.

Biplane Levasseur PL.14 torpedo bomber floatplanes were only briefly used as they proved to be too fragile for landing at sea.

The larger Loire 130 flying boat replaced the GL-813 from April 1938, although the catapults had to be modified to handle their greater weight.

It also proved to be a greatly deficient design; within three months of its service debut in August 1939, five had crashed due to structural failure of the wings and the remaining aircraft were grounded.

From September 1937, she was based at Oran to protect neutral shipping from commerce raiders during the Spanish Civil War.

[17] In February 1938, she was refitted in Toulon to upgrade her catapults and then served as an aviation transport between France and her colonies in North Africa.

[17] In August 1939, she embarked six Loire 130s and eight Latécoère 298s and sailed for Oran, where she was when World War II began the next month.

Commandant Teste remained in North African waters until December 1939, when she returned to Toulon and landed her aircraft.

She was lightly damaged by shell splinters during the British attack on Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940, but suffered no casualties.

Refloated by the Italians on 1 May 1943, Commandant Teste was captured by the Germans in September 1943 and sunk again the following year by Allied bombs on 18–19 August 1944.