2017: Alain Juppé vs. Manuel Valls vs. Marine Le Pen vs. Jean-Luc Mélenchon

[Kingpoleon]

What would the results of this be?

[Zuza]

Easy win for Juppé, of course (most likely, in a run-off against Le Pen), unless something really unusual and unpredictable happens. Firstly, LR candidate was believed to be a guaranteed winner before the Penelopegate; secondly, Juppé polled much better than Fillon; thirdly, no Macron. Valls probably would fare better than Hamon, but not enough. Bayrou would probably endorse Juppé in this scenario.

[Lechasseur]

It would probably be the same result as in IRL with Macron in the second round, the difference being most of Macron's voters would vote for Juppé in the first round but some would go for Valls (probably about 65-35 for Juppé), and a lot of conservatives that voted for Fillon would vote for Le Pen, allowing her to lead in the first round but still lose in the second  to Alain Juppé (she does better in the first round but picks up less votes in the second round and thus the result ends up being more or less the same). Valls probably gets about 12% or so and Mélenchon stays the same.

[Lechasseur]

Actually having thought about, I think if both Juppé and Valls got their parties' nominations I could see Le Pen and Mélenchon in the second round, with Mélenchon beating Le Pen, but with a much narrower win than Macron's, and I don't think he'd have a parliamentary majority, the National Assembly would look like a 4th Republic Parliament.

[mvd10]

Juppé would have won (unless he also had a similar scandal). He undoubtedly would have become less popular during the campaign but his early polling leads were enormous. The 2016 Les Républicains primaries were supposed to be the real French presidential elections, and even when Fillon (who was extremely right-wing by French standards) won he was supposed to easily win the elections (and he would have won if not for Penelopegate). Lechasseur is right that there is a rift between Juppé and the hard-right faction in LR, but I think the overwhelming majority of Fillon voters would have voted for Juppé, and Juppé would have picked up enough Macron voters to get to the second round (and easily defeat whoever is up against him).

[Former President tack50]

Without Macron running as an independent?

Round 1:

Alain Juppé 42%
Jean Luc Mélenchon: 23%
Marine Le Pen: 21%
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan: 6%
Manuel Valls: 4%
Other: 4%

Juppé gets almost all of Fillon's and Macron's votes. A few from Fillon go to Dupont Aignan. He acts kind of like a spoiler in a way so Le Pen doesn't reach the 2nd round. Valls performs even worse than Hamon and some of Hamon's voters go to Melenchon as the only "real left" candidate.

Round 2:

Alain Juppé 62%
Jean Luc Mélenchon: 38%

Melenchon loses by a slightly smaller landslide than that of Le Pen in our timeline.

With Macron as an independent:

Round 1:

Alain Juppé: 28%
Jean Luc Melenchon: 22%
Marine Le Pen: 21%
Emmanuel Macron: 17%
Nicolas Dupont Aignan: 6%
Manuel Valls: 2%
Others: 4%

Macron takes votes from people who view Juppé and Valls as corrupt, putting Juppé below 30% and Valls at around the same levels as the weird far left candidates (fitting for the PM of a president with an 8% approval rating). The rest is mostly the same as before.

Round 2

Alain Juppé: 62%
Jean Luc Mélenchon: 38%

Same as round 2 before