The submarine was originally namesaked
Provence and was renamed
Rubis on 18 December 1980. Being the lead ship of the class, fine-tuning was long, notably needing over 1,000 hours of underwater testing before
commissioning.
Rubis was fielded on 11 December 1976 and
launched on 7 July 1979.
Active service The
Rubis commenced active service on 23 February 1983. In 1985 she evacuated three
Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) agents who sailed to New Zealand on the yacht
Ouvéa to participate in the bombing of , then scuttled their yacht. Later in 1991, the
Rubis formed part of the French naval contribution to the
Gulf War. Between September 1992 and July 1993,
Rubis undertook a major refitting which upgraded her to the level of the . Soon after, on 17 July 1993,
Rubis collided with the
tanker Lyria, as the
Rubis was surfacing, causing minor damage and injuries. On 18 July 1996, the
fourragère of the
Ordre de la Libération was awarded to the submarine and the crew, as a legacy of the
Rubis of the Second World War, which had been awarded the medal. The
Rubis also took part in Operation Trident, the 1999 bombing campaign over
Yugoslavia, by protecting the aeronaval group. Along with the
Améthyste, the boat was one of the two submarines who interdicted the
Kotor straits to the
Serbian Navy, thus effectively forbidding its use. The boat also gathered information for the coalition. In 2002, the
Rubis protected Task Force 473 in the Indian Ocean, during Operation Hercules, the naval part of the
invasion of Afghanistan. On 30 March 2007, while submerged,
Rubis hit the bottom, damaging her
bow and
sonar. The boat returned to operations in July 2008.
Rubis was expected to be decommissioned in the beginning of 2017 but underwent modernization and returned to service in 2019. She was then scheduled to be withdrawn from service toward the end of 2022. In the summer of 2022 the boat undertook its final operational mission. She was decommissioned in
Cherbourg on 2 December 2022. ==Awards and honours==