diff --git a/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2021-06-16-16-52-14.bpo-44434.SQS4Pg.rst b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2021-06-16-16-52-14.bpo-44434.SQS4Pg.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000000..37b5b57ce65693f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2021-06-16-16-52-14.bpo-44434.SQS4Pg.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+_thread.start_new_thread() no longer calls PyThread_exit_thread() explicitly
+at the thread exit, the call was redundant. On Linux with the glibc,
+pthread_exit() aborts the whole process if dlopen() fails to open
+libgcc_s.so file (ex: EMFILE error). Patch by Victor Stinner.
diff --git a/Modules/_threadmodule.c b/Modules/_threadmodule.c
index 3f7f1d23bc90dac..cf2443e0fe9a111 100644
--- a/Modules/_threadmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/_threadmodule.c
@@ -1107,7 +1107,9 @@ thread_run(void *boot_raw)
     PyThreadState_Clear(tstate);
     _PyThreadState_DeleteCurrent(tstate);
 
-    PyThread_exit_thread();
+    // bpo-44434: Don't call explicitly PyThread_exit_thread(). On Linux with
+    // the glibc, pthread_exit() can abort the whole process if dlopen() fails
+    // to open the libgcc_s.so library (ex: EMFILE error).
 }
 
 static PyObject *