Elite One

Prior to the creation of Elite 1, the French Rugby League Championship was the top tier of the French rugby league system.

The competition was founded in 2002, as the Elite One Championship, following the splitting of the French Rugby League Championship into two divisions. The format stayed the same with teams playing each other home and away, before a play-off series would determine the Champions. The club finishing bottom would not be automatically relegated, it would be dependent on whether the club finishing top of Elite Two Championship either wanted to be promoted or their facilities were up to standard.

The 2002–03 season, the first of the Elite 1 championship, saw the defending champions of France, Villeneuve, up against Saint-Gaudens in the final. Villeneuve had won the league championship in 2000–01 and completed a league/cup double in 2001–2002. Having already won the Lord Derby Cup in 2003, they achieved a second consecutive double with a 31–18 win to retain the Max Rousié Trophy. Their opponents, Saint-Gaudens, had not won a championship since the early 1990s, but the following season they defeated Union Treiziste Catalane 14–10 to claim the title and in doing so prevent UTC from claiming the double. That achievement would come for UTC the following year as they went undefeated throughout the 2004–05 season and beat Toulouse 66–16 in the championship final. The following two seasons saw Pia claim consecutive doubles. In the 2007–08 season Lézignan began a run of four consecutive title wins becoming only the second club, after Catalan in the early 1980s, to achieve this feat.

The competition was renamed as Super XIII at the start of the 2024–2025 season. In September 2024, the president of the French Rugby League Federation, Dominique Baloup [fr], gave an interview published in La Dépêche in which he discussed plans to increase the number of teams in the Super XIII and the possibility of moving the season to run between February and September from 2026.