diff --git a/news/7577.trivial b/news/7577.trivial
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e69de29bb
diff --git a/tests/conftest.py b/tests/conftest.py
index 16b5c6202..fd8204713 100644
--- a/tests/conftest.py
+++ b/tests/conftest.py
@@ -83,7 +83,13 @@ def tmpdir_factory(request, tmpdir_factory):
     """
     yield tmpdir_factory
     if not request.config.getoption("--keep-tmpdir"):
-        tmpdir_factory.getbasetemp().remove(ignore_errors=True)
+        # py.path.remove() uses str paths on Python 2 and cannot
+        # handle non-ASCII file names. This works around the problem by
+        # passing a unicode object to rmtree().
+        shutil.rmtree(
+            six.text_type(tmpdir_factory.getbasetemp()),
+            ignore_errors=True,
+        )
 
 
 @pytest.fixture
@@ -103,6 +109,9 @@ def tmpdir(request, tmpdir):
     # This should prevent us from needing a multiple gigabyte temporary
     # directory while running the tests.
     if not request.config.getoption("--keep-tmpdir"):
+        # py.path.remove() uses str paths on Python 2 and cannot
+        # handle non-ASCII file names. This works around the problem by
+        # passing a unicode object to rmtree().
         shutil.rmtree(six.text_type(tmpdir), ignore_errors=True)
 
 
diff --git a/tests/lib/__init__.py b/tests/lib/__init__.py
index 10c9e47d6..9a55c156e 100644
--- a/tests/lib/__init__.py
+++ b/tests/lib/__init__.py
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ from textwrap import dedent
 from zipfile import ZipFile
 
 import pytest
-from pip._vendor.six import PY2, ensure_binary
+from pip._vendor.six import PY2, ensure_binary, text_type
 from scripttest import FoundDir, TestFileEnvironment
 
 from pip._internal.index.collector import LinkCollector
@@ -1052,8 +1052,16 @@ def create_basic_wheel_for_package(
         path.parent.mkdir(exist_ok=True, parents=True)
         path.write_bytes(ensure_binary(files[fname]))
 
+    # The base_dir cast is required to make `shutil.make_archive()` use
+    # Unicode paths on Python 2, making it able to properly archive
+    # files with non-ASCII names.
     retval = script.scratch_path / archive_name
-    generated = shutil.make_archive(retval, 'zip', script.temp_path)
+    generated = shutil.make_archive(
+        retval,
+        'zip',
+        root_dir=script.temp_path,
+        base_dir=text_type(os.curdir),
+    )
     shutil.move(generated, retval)
 
     shutil.rmtree(script.temp_path)