Opinion of French Presidential campaign rules

[greenforest32]

1. (Candidacy) - I'm not familiar with the requirements for officially becoming a candidate but why require signatures of (local) elected officials instead of regular people? Seems less direct.

2. (Campaign finance) - I think ideally elections could be decided with minimal money and just simple (but comprehensive) discussion and voting based on issues but it seems like money is conflated with legitimacy so I do support strict contribution limits and public financing of elections. These limits are too high I think.

3. (Advertisement) - Free advertising in elections doesn't seem bad. Not sure I see the point in preventing a negative ad (negativity can be constructive criticism) or preventing ads at certain locations or times.

4. (Campaign end) - Approve of Sunday elections, disapprove of banning campaigning on the final day/days.

5. (Results) - Though I'm not opposed to releasing the results early on election day as credible estimates are possible, this 90 minute lag doesn't seem too bad.

[greenforest32]

- Regarding results : The latest polls close at 20:00. This is the moment when we are supposed to learn about the results. However, the first credible estimates usually come as early as 18:30. It is illegal to publish them until all polls are closed, whether you're a pollster, a media or a private citizen. Of course, it is quite easy to circumvent this in the era of internets and globalization.

Does this ban exit polling results too or is it just for releasing official government results?