She was scuttled by the French on 27 November 1942 to prevent her capture by the Germans during their advance on Toulon, but was then refloated by the Italians in 1943.

France sought to expand its submarine forces – which were not limited by the treaty – as an essential tool to defend its coastline and empire.

Roquebert was tasked with creating a "grand cruiser" type of submarine, with the role of carrying out surveillance of an adversary's bases, destroying their communications by attacking their ships, while protecting French colonies.

[5] Construction of the Type I project submarines, starting with Redoutable, was approved by the superior council of the navy on 1 July 1924.

Propulsion while surfaced was provided by two 6,000 hp (4,474 kW) diesel motors built by the Swiss manufacturer Sulzer.

[5] Her motors were relatively noisy, as was auxiliary propulsion while submerged, and this constituted the principal criticism of that submarine, despite their reliability.

[11] Their speed and powerful armament was balanced against their ability to detect targets, which was essentially by visual sight.

[12] At the start of World War II, she was assigned to the seventh submarine division, based at Cherbourg, along with Vengeur.

[5] In December 1939, he was sent to search for the German supply ship Altmark (10 000 barrels) in the centre of the Atlantic with Fresnel, Heron and Héros.