Why is there a space between the end of the sentence and the exclamation mark?

Hi Eugene,

yes, French punctuation is different from English - it is just the way it is done. There is also a space before question marks, though not before commas or full stops.  Also you have probably noticed that French indicates the start and end of speech in a different way to English.  I don't know if editors of French books normally have a way to prevent the exclamation and question marks going on to the next line, but when this happens we notice.