Is it usual in French to type a blank before a question-mark?
No, that is not usual.
It isn’t usual. It is not usual as well in front of a front of a comma, colon, semi-colon or exclamation mark 
In this collection there is allways a blank in front of the question-mark. I suggest to correct this.
Thank you for your help!
- I should have used the check spelling since I wrote twice ‘front of’!!!
I will make the correction Veral.
Thank you, Marianne.
My name is Vera. I only added the “I” because “Vera” wasn’t available.
If I may just mention: Microsoft Word always inserts a blank in front of a question mark and exclamation mark automatically as soon as the language is set to French.
I think the space is there so that the words can be separated and can be highlighted more easily
Actually, it is normal to find a blank before ! ? : in French! If you take any French book, you will see this. As said above, Word adds the blank automatically. I don’t think they should be removed at all! They are part of the French writing.
Yes, I agree. It’s the typographical rule to let a space before the double punctuation mark ( ; : ! ?) in French.
I see the blanks before the question marks are still there, as it must be. I would rather add some missing full points.
Moreover, if I may add a linguistical remark, the most common question for asking one’s name in French is not “Quel est votre nom?” (which sounds as a literal translation from English), but “Comment vous appelez-vous?” or, more informal: “Vous vous appelez comment?” I realize this sentence is a bit more complicated than “Quel est votre nom?”, but it is way more common. Just look for them on Google to see the number of results.
I am glad you agree, MissTake. I was not sure about the semicolon.
Vera, it depends on which French you’re talking about. The typographical conventions of the European French are different from those of Canada.
Interesting to see this thread coming up after such a long time 
I did some research on my own (long time ago) and the answer that I got was, that in writings a space is used that is smaller than the usual space. It’s a typographic space. It should be a “saved” space that for example is supported by Word. I found the information that if a system doesn’t support the “saved” space (for example text emails) the space should not be used. What does this means for LingQ?
The explanation was that French typography had often used Italic as character set and it was easier for the eyes when a space was added between the text and the “double signs”.
I had googled a lot to find this answer.
Thank you, Vera. I had often wondered why a space came up when I typed in Word with the keyboard set to French. Although it is an automatic feature, it can immediately be corrected by the writer.
In typed English the convention is/was that there be a double free space between the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next.
En français : texte[espace]?[espace]texte
En anglais : texte?[espace]texte
The Fench answer I gave in a wrting correction
En français, le point d’interrogation est précédé d’une espace fine insécable ;
http://www.la-ponctuation.com/
http://www.cuy.be/orthotypo/orthotypo_ponct_esp.htm
http://blog.esten.fr/category/glossaires/typographie/
Ce qui peut perturber, c’est le fait que l’espace est fine.
L’espace fine est égale à 1/8 de cadratin (cadratin = carré imaginaire dont la taille est égale au corps du caractère).
Translation of this French answer
In French, the question mark is preceded by a thin indivisible space. Your can be disturbed because that space is thin.
The thin space is equal to one eighth of an em (em = imaginary square whose size is equal to the body of the character).
http://www.la-ponctuation.com/
http://tinyurl.com/2wyoscv
http://blog.esten.fr/category/glossaires/typographie/
Your can be disturbed > You can be disturbed (Indeed, I am, not by this em… my hands are not awake
This rule applies in the printings. In our daily messages, by e-mail or by publishing an article on the web we put a regular space.
Note - the word space is feminine in French when it refers to typographic term