If "Les Miz" took place in today's society, I can see some of the following:

1. The Thenardiers going to jail for violating the child labor laws by forcing young Cosette to work, as well as being charged with child abuse.

2. Cosette and Marius calling the emergency squad (or whatever they call it in France) for Valjean, unless he dies before the squad can get there, or signs the form refusing treatment.

Anything else?

lol

Act One:
-Jean Valjean would not go to jail for stealing bread, he would be fined and have this data recorded, and let off with a warning.
-The Factory Bitch would be fired after her harassment to Fantine. Also the foreman.
-Fantine would go see a doctor to cure her STDs. She'd apply for welfare and not have to send Cosette away. She'd also sue the factory and the foreman, and Valjean, for unfair dismissal.
-She also wouldn't sell her teeth, but maybe her hair. Who does *that* anymore?
-No one would visit the Thenardier's Inn, because it would be too overpriced and too low in quality.
-Valjean bursting into a trial and causing a scene would get him subdued, and also in confessing he'd be taken into custody for questioning.
-Both Valjean and Thernardier would be arrested on child smuggling charges.
-There wouldn't be revolts in Paris, so no barricade.
-The ABC crew would be a bunch of hipsters, whining about how unfair life is.
-There would be an uncomfortable amount of sexual tension between Valjean and Cosette.
-Cosette would be an emo, rightly so after being trapped in her house for about 8 years. Although, she'd manage to pass Marius her number so they could text.
-Eponine would be exactly the same - woe on me, Marius likes someone else (proceed to bellow a ballad on unrequited love which most teenage girls go through)
-The Attack on Rue Plumet would be foiled by Valjean's top class security system rather than Eponine's scream
-After the attack being foiled, Valjean would move to another house rather than move country.

Act Two:
-The Barricade would be inside a school or an industrial building, led by the over-zealous leader Enjolras who screams how people must die rather than surrender (can't remember the real place - Wacko?).
-If Eponine was shot, she'd die very quickly since guns are super these days - no time for ballads!
-Valjean would hate Marius because he's cramping his style with Cosette (and vis-versa)
-Javert wouldn't think anything of Valjean, because he just stole some bread, so wouldn't feel compelled to kill himself.
-The Turning Women would simply say "Oh well, better luck next time".
-Marius would be glad to escape from the asylum and Enjolras, and now he doesn't need to die for anything.
-Cosette and Marius get closer after texting, so Valjean finally realises he should probably leave and live his life as a celibate.
-Marius finds out about Valjean stealing bread, and alerts the police. Valjean is locked up for life (?) or sent to an old-people's home.
-The Thernardies would be arrested for blackmailing, and would be thrown out of the wedding for their derogatory observations and trying to steal the spotlight.
-Valjean has contracted Alzheimer's, hence him talking to himself, dead people, and continually asking "Who am I?". Dies from dementia when Cosette and Marius pop into the old folk's home.

Les Miz would not be like it was in the book/musical if it all occured today - it's not that likely that living conditions in 21st century France at that bad! So, it would be either set in another country (poorer perhaps) or it would have all the changes mentioned above!

Hahahaha! The way you guys described it is hilarious

If Les Mis took place 2day it would suck. Unless it was in another country w/ bad laws and a monarchy like France was back then.

Would I be overly cynical for thinking that the only part of Les Mis that couldn't take place in a modern-day first world country would be the barricades? Draconian sentencing, prisons that take in scared kids and turn out hardened criminals, prostitution, child abuse, foster-care rackets, gangs, urban crime--all still around. But political change via armed urban revolt? In most European or North American countries? Ha. You want that, get a plane ticket to Egypt.

Valjean gets slammed with mandatory minimum sentencing laws for selling a few grams of crack so his sister can buy groceries for her kids, gets out of prison twenty years later bitter and unemployable, finds religion, becomes an entrepreneur under a false identity; Fantine's baby daddy skips out on her, CPS takes the kid because she can't afford day care or time off from her dead-end job, she loses her job and falls into prostitution; the Thénardiers run a skeezy motel, take in foster kids for the cash, and put up a respectable front while secretly using the kids as slave labor... all of these things happen. Maybe they shouldn't, on paper, but people slip through the cracks.

Easy. The Amis would be a rag-tag immigrant gang from the Banlieues, and their burning car n stuff barricades crushed by the martial French police state. Problem solved.

edit: Fact: The Paris fire brigade is even today a pioneer unit of the French army, under command of the prefect of police.

Or moderately, do some squatting.

I also think that many of the things are still relevant to today's society