In conventional superconductors, a gap exists in the energy absorption spectrum only below the transition temperature (T{sub c}), corresponding to the energy price to pay for breaking a Cooper pair of electrons. In high-T{sub c} cuprate superconductors above T{sub c}, an energy gap called the pseudogap exists, and is controversially attributed either to pre-formed superconducting pairs, which would exhibit particle-hole symmetry, or to competing phases which would typically break it. Scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) studies suggest that the pseudogap stems from lattice translational symmetry breaking and is associated with a different characteristic spectrum for adding or removing electrons (particle-hole asymmetry). However, no signatu...