@@ -713,6 +713,42 @@ conflict.
 
    .. versionadded:: 3.6
 
+
+.. envvar:: PYTHONCOERCECLOCALE
+
+   If set to the value ``0``, causes the main Python command line application
+   to skip coercing the legacy ASCII-based C locale to a more capable UTF-8
+   based alternative. Note that this setting is checked even when the
+   :option:`-E` or :option:`-I` options are used, as it is handled prior to
+   the processing of command line options.
+
+   If this variable is *not* set, or is set to a value other than ``0``, and
+   the current locale reported for the ``LC_CTYPE`` category is the default
+   ``C`` locale, then the Python CLI will attempt to configure the following
+   locales for the ``LC_CTYPE`` category in the order listed before loading the
+   interpreter runtime:
+
+   * ``C.UTF-8``
+   * ``C.utf8``
+   * ``UTF-8``
+
+   If setting one of these locale categories succeeds, then the ``LC_CTYPE``
+   environment variable will also be set accordingly in the current process
+   environment before the Python runtime is initialized. This ensures the
+   updated setting is seen in subprocesses, as well as in operations that
+   query the environment rather than the current C locale (such as Python's
+   own :func:`locale.getdefaultlocale`).
+
+   Configuring one of these locales (either explicitly or via the above
+   implicit locale coercion) will automatically set the error handler for
+   :data:`sys.stdin` and :data:`sys.stdout` to ``surrogateescape``. This
+   behavior can be overridden using :envvar:`PYTHONIOENCODING` as usual.
+
+   Availability: \*nix
+
+   .. versionadded:: 3.7
+      See :pep:`538` for more details.
+
 Debug-mode variables
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 
@@ -70,6 +70,51 @@ Summary -- Release highlights
 New Features
 ============
 
+.. _whatsnew37-pep538:
+
+PEP 538: Legacy C Locale Coercion
+---------------------------------
+
+An ongoing challenge within the Python 3 series has been determining a sensible
+default strategy for handling the "7-bit ASCII" text encoding assumption
+currently implied by the use of the default C locale on non-Windows platforms.
+
+:pep:`538` updates the default interpreter command line interface to
+automatically coerce that locale to an available UTF-8 based locale as
+described in the documentation of the new :envvar:`PYTHONCOERCECLOCALE`
+environment variable. Automatically setting ``LC_CTYPE`` this way means that
+both the core interpreter and locale-aware C extensions (such as
+:mod:`readline`) will assume the use of UTF-8 as the default text encoding,
+rather than ASCII.
+
+The platform support definition in :pep:`11` has also been updated to limit
+full text handling support to suitably configured non-ASCII based locales.
+
+As part of this change, the default error handler for ``stdin`` and ``stdout``
+is now ``surrogateescape`` (rather than ``strict``) when using any of the
+defined coercion target locales (currently ``C.UTF-8``, ``C.utf8``, and
+``UTF-8``). The default error handler for ``stderr`` continues to be
+``backslashreplace``, regardless of locale.
+
+.. note::
+
+   In the current implementation, a warning message is printed directly to
+   ``stderr`` even for successful implicit locale coercion. This gives
+   redistributors and system integrators the opportunity to determine if they
+   should be making an environmental change to avoid the need for implicit
+   coercion at the Python interpreter level.
+
+   However, it's not clear that this is going to be the best approach for
+   the final 3.7.0 release, and we may end up deciding to disable the warning
+   by default and provide some way of opting into it at runtime or build time.
+
+   Concrete examples of use cases where it would be preferrable to disable the
+   warning by default can be noted on :issue:`30565`.
+
+.. seealso::
+
+    :pep:`538` -- Coercing the legacy C locale to a UTF-8 based locale
+       PEP written and implemented by Nick Coghlan.
 
 
 Other Language Changes
 
@@ -48,8 +48,35 @@ def interpreter_requires_environment():
     return __cached_interp_requires_environment
 
 
-_PythonRunResult = collections.namedtuple("_PythonRunResult",
-                                          ("rc", "out", "err"))
+class _PythonRunResult(collections.namedtuple("_PythonRunResult",
+                                          ("rc", "out", "err"))):
+    """Helper for reporting Python subprocess run results"""
+    def fail(self, cmd_line):
+        """Provide helpful details about failed subcommand runs"""
+        # Limit to 80 lines to ASCII characters
+        maxlen = 80 * 100
+        out, err = self.out, self.err
+        if len(out) > maxlen:
+            out = b'(... truncated stdout ...)' + out[-maxlen:]
+        if len(err) > maxlen:
+            err = b'(... truncated stderr ...)' + err[-maxlen:]
+        out = out.decode('ascii', 'replace').rstrip()
+        err = err.decode('ascii', 'replace').rstrip()
+        raise AssertionError("Process return code is %d\n"
+                             "command line: %r\n"
+                             "\n"
+                             "stdout:\n"
+                             "---\n"
+                             "%s\n"
+                             "---\n"
+                             "\n"
+                             "stderr:\n"
+                             "---\n"
+                             "%s\n"
+                             "---"
+                             % (self.rc, cmd_line,
+                                out,
+                                err))
 
 
 # Executing the interpreter in a subprocess
@@ -107,30 +134,7 @@ def run_python_until_end(*args, **env_vars):
 def _assert_python(expected_success, *args, **env_vars):
     res, cmd_line = run_python_until_end(*args, **env_vars)
     if (res.rc and expected_success) or (not res.rc and not expected_success):
-        # Limit to 80 lines to ASCII characters
-        maxlen = 80 * 100
-        out, err = res.out, res.err
-        if len(out) > maxlen:
-            out = b'(... truncated stdout ...)' + out[-maxlen:]
-        if len(err) > maxlen:
-            err = b'(... truncated stderr ...)' + err[-maxlen:]
-        out = out.decode('ascii', 'replace').rstrip()
-        err = err.decode('ascii', 'replace').rstrip()
-        raise AssertionError("Process return code is %d\n"
-                             "command line: %r\n"
-                             "\n"
-                             "stdout:\n"
-                             "---\n"
-                             "%s\n"
-                             "---\n"
-                             "\n"
-                             "stderr:\n"
-                             "---\n"
-                             "%s\n"
-                             "---"
-                             % (res.rc, cmd_line,
-                                out,
-                                err))
+        res.fail(cmd_line)
     return res
 
 def assert_python_ok(*args, **env_vars):