diff -r 40e8b39199da Lib/distutils/dist.py
--- a/Lib/distutils/dist.py	Sat Dec 10 17:34:46 2016 +0100
+++ b/Lib/distutils/dist.py	Sat Dec 10 20:11:05 2016 +0100
@@ -388,7 +388,7 @@
         if DEBUG:
             self.announce("Distribution.parse_config_files():")
 
-        parser = ConfigParser()
+        parser = ConfigParser(interpolation=None)
         for filename in filenames:
             if DEBUG:
                 self.announce("  reading %s" % filename)