Her father, Doui Matayo Wetta (1917–1980), was a founding member in 1947 of the Association des indigènes calédoniens et loyaltiens français (Association of Native Caledonians and French Loyalists – AICLF) and one of the first nine Melanesians to sit on the general council of the French territory of New Caledonia.
Although he was a Catholic and was promoting the idea of Kanak independence and she came from a Protestant family that wished to remain a part of France, they married and had six children.
By this time, her husband had become the leader of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) and of the self-proclaimed "Provisional Government of Kanaky".
[2][4] After the murder of her husband on 4 May 1989 in Ouvéa in the Loyalty Islands Province, Tjibaou participated in the creation in 1990 of the Kanak Culture Development Agency (ADCK), and became its president.
From 1995 to 2000, she was a municipal councillor in Hienghène, a town on the east coast of Grande Terre, of which her husband was mayor from 1977 until his death.