Yes, you have to insert a space before:

• : colon
• ; semicolon
• ! exclamation mark
• ? question mark
• » right quotation mark

and a space after:

• « left quotation mark

Yes before a colon, a (thin) space is always expected.

Note that before other two-stroke punctuation marks (semicolon, exclamation and question mark), when rendering the text on a system that doesn’t make a difference between a thin space and a regular space (typically web pages), the norm differs between Québec and France.

The former one tells to use no space at all while in France, a regular space is expected.

More rules about spacing from the OQLF here.