diff --git a/src/basic/extract-word.c b/src/basic/extract-word.c
index b7ae2ed1cd..34cfb36a4a 100644
--- a/src/basic/extract-word.c
+++ b/src/basic/extract-word.c
@@ -28,8 +28,6 @@ int extract_first_word(const char **p, char **ret, const char *separators, Extra
 
         assert(p);
         assert(ret);
-        /* Those two don't make sense together. */
-        assert(!FLAGS_SET(flags, EXTRACT_UNQUOTE|EXTRACT_RETAIN_ESCAPE));
 
         /* Bail early if called after last value or with no input */
         if (!*p)
diff --git a/src/libsystemd-network/network-internal.c b/src/libsystemd-network/network-internal.c
index f18ec88300..1f2e5c7e65 100644
--- a/src/libsystemd-network/network-internal.c
+++ b/src/libsystemd-network/network-internal.c
@@ -254,7 +254,7 @@ int config_parse_match_strv(
         for (;;) {
                 _cleanup_free_ char *word = NULL, *k = NULL;
 
-                r = extract_first_word(&p, &word, NULL, EXTRACT_UNQUOTE);
+                r = extract_first_word(&p, &word, NULL, EXTRACT_UNQUOTE|EXTRACT_RETAIN_ESCAPE);
                 if (r == 0)
                         return 0;
                 if (r == -ENOMEM)
diff --git a/src/network/test-networkd-conf.c b/src/network/test-networkd-conf.c
index 6883cbe1ec..2007acb781 100644
--- a/src/network/test-networkd-conf.c
+++ b/src/network/test-networkd-conf.c
@@ -240,7 +240,7 @@ static void test_config_parse_match_strv(void) {
                                        "!baz",
                                        "KEY=val",
                                        "KEY2=val with space",
-                                       "KEY3=val with \"quotation\"")));
+                                       "KEY3=val with \\quotation\\")));
 }
 
 int main(int argc, char **argv) {
diff --git a/src/shared/conf-parser.c b/src/shared/conf-parser.c
index a495c2538b..40792086da 100644
--- a/src/shared/conf-parser.c
+++ b/src/shared/conf-parser.c
@@ -760,7 +760,7 @@ int config_parse_strv(
         for (;;) {
                 char *word = NULL;
 
-                r = extract_first_word(&rvalue, &word, NULL, EXTRACT_UNQUOTE);
+                r = extract_first_word(&rvalue, &word, NULL, EXTRACT_UNQUOTE|EXTRACT_RETAIN_ESCAPE);
                 if (r == 0)
                         break;
                 if (r == -ENOMEM)