Left–right political spectrum
The terms left-wing and right-wing are widely used in the United States, but as on the global level there is no firm consensus about their meaning. The only aspect that is generally agreed upon is that they are the defining opposites of the United States political spectrum. Left and right in the U.S. are generally associated with liberal and conservative respectively, although the meanings of the two sets of terms do not entirely coincide. Depending on the political affiliation of the individual using them, these terms can be spoken with varying implications. A 2005 poll of 2,209 American adults showed that "respondents generally viewed the paired concepts liberals and left-wingers and conservatives and right-wingers as possessing, respectively, generally similar political beliefs", but also showed that around ten percent fewer respondents understood the terms left and right than understood the terms liberal and conservative.
Rally of Republican Lefts
They defined themselves as "left-wing republicans" whilst they opposed left-wing policies. Indeed, until the end of the 19th century, the French left was defined as republican and the right as pro-monarchy. Then, when the republic was no longer questioned, the conservative republican groups, who had sat at the center-left of the assemblies, moved to the right-wing seats, but they continued to consider themselves as left-wingers: this is known as "sinistrisme".