This qualitative study is an analysis of the interactional environment of opinion exchange, based on a corpus of seven informal conversations between native speakers of French recorded in 2010. While previous research has highlighted a predilection for diverging views in French conversation, the data here reveal considerable mitigation in the expression of opinions and disagreement. The frequent use of impersonal expressions in the data is also analyzed and contrasted to textbook presentations of opinion exchange. The purpose of the study is to increase awareness among both instructors and learners of the role of expressing and responding to opinions in French conversational interaction, and to offer suggestions on how to integrate this dimension of real-world talk into classroom teaching.