It should be explained that in Germany and France, liberal doesn't mean what it means in anglo countries. Germans and the French understand "liberal" as "libertarian". Left-liberalism in German is basically understood as "Libertarian socialism" whereas German sozialliberal ("social liberal") means social libertarianism such as the positions of most of the German Green Party (though with the influx of young new members it is slowly shifting further left).

Now if you speak of "the liberals" it usually points to the right-libertarian party FDP in Germany. We call the "wirtschaftsliberal" which means "economically liberal".

So keep in mind that definitions of terms in other political systems can be different.