diff --git a/cli/src/main/scala-2.12/coursier/cli/Bootstrap.scala b/cli/src/main/scala-2.12/coursier/cli/Bootstrap.scala
index 9ad4555c5..500a88977 100644
--- a/cli/src/main/scala-2.12/coursier/cli/Bootstrap.scala
+++ b/cli/src/main/scala-2.12/coursier/cli/Bootstrap.scala
@@ -76,9 +76,10 @@ object Bootstrap extends CaseApp[BootstrapOptions] {
       }
 
       val properties0 = validProperties.map { s =>
-        val idx = s.indexOf('=')
-        assert(idx >= 0)
-        (s.take(idx), s.drop(idx + 1))
+        s.split("=", 2) match {
+          case Array(k, v) => k -> v
+          case _ => sys.error("Cannot possibly happen")
+        }
       }
 
       val bootstrapJar =
@@ -197,10 +198,27 @@ object Bootstrap extends CaseApp[BootstrapOptions] {
 
       outputZip.close()
 
-      // escaping of  javaOpt  possibly a bit loose :-|
+      val javaCmd = Seq("java") ++
+        options
+          .options
+          .javaOpt
+          // escaping possibly a bit loose :-|
+          .map(s => "'" + s.replace("'", "\\'") + "'") ++
+        properties0
+          .map {
+            case (k, v) =>
+              // escaping possibly a bit loose :-|
+              s"'-D$k=${v.replace("'", "\\'")}'"
+          } ++
+        Seq(
+          "-jar",
+          "\"$0\"",
+          "\"$@\""
+        )
+
       val shellPreamble = Seq(
         "#!/usr/bin/env sh",
-        "exec java " + options.options.javaOpt.map(s => "'" + s.replace("'", "\\'") + "'").mkString(" ") + " -jar \"$0\" \"$@\""
+        "exec " + javaCmd.mkString(" ")
       ).mkString("", "\n", "\n")
 
       try Files.write(output0.toPath, shellPreamble.getBytes(UTF_8) ++ buffer.toByteArray)
diff --git a/scripts/travis.sh b/scripts/travis.sh
index 1f2ac28ac..496145c24 100755
--- a/scripts/travis.sh
+++ b/scripts/travis.sh
@@ -138,12 +138,17 @@ testBootstrap() {
 
     # run via the launcher rather than via the sbt-pack scripts, because the latter interprets -Dfoo=baz itself
     # rather than passing it to coursier since https://github.com/xerial/sbt-pack/pull/118
-    ./coursier-test bootstrap -o cs-props -J -Dfoo=baz io.get-coursier:props:1.0.2
+    ./coursier-test bootstrap -o cs-props -D other=thing -J -Dfoo=baz io.get-coursier:props:1.0.2
     local OUT="$(./cs-props foo)"
     if [ "$OUT" != baz ]; then
       echo -e "Error: unexpected output from bootstrapped props command.\n$OUT" 1>&2
       exit 1
     fi
+    local OUT="$(./cs-props other)"
+    if [ "$OUT" != thing ]; then
+      echo -e "Error: unexpected output from bootstrapped props command.\n$OUT" 1>&2
+      exit 1
+    fi
   fi
 }