diff --git a/.github/matrix.py b/.github/matrix.py
index 7925c94a8..5e474dec0 100755
--- a/.github/matrix.py
+++ b/.github/matrix.py
@@ -150,8 +150,7 @@ def main(ref_name):
                 "CC": CC,
                 "FLAGS": [
                     "USE_OBSOLETE_LINKER=1",
-                    'DEBUG_CFLAGS="-g -fsanitize=address"',
-                    'LDFLAGS="-fsanitize=address"',
+                    'ARCH_FLAGS="-g -fsanitize=address"',
                     'OPT_CFLAGS="-O1"',
                     "USE_ZLIB=1",
                     "USE_OT=1",
diff --git a/.github/workflows/fedora-rawhide.yml b/.github/workflows/fedora-rawhide.yml
index 90f270e5c..303521997 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/fedora-rawhide.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/fedora-rawhide.yml
@@ -12,10 +12,10 @@ jobs:
     strategy:
       matrix:
         platform: [
-          { name: x64, cc: gcc,   QUICTLS_EXTRA_ARGS: "", ADDLIB_ATOMIC: "", DEBUG_CFLAGS: "", LDFLAGS: "" },
-          { name: x64, cc: clang, QUICTLS_EXTRA_ARGS: "", ADDLIB_ATOMIC: "", DEBUG_CFLAGS: "", LDFLAGS: "" },
-          { name: x86, cc: gcc,   QUICTLS_EXTRA_ARGS: "-m32 linux-generic32", ADDLIB_ATOMIC: "-latomic", DEBUG_CFLAGS: "-m32", LDFLAGS: "-m32" },
-          { name: x86, cc: clang, QUICTLS_EXTRA_ARGS: "-m32 linux-generic32", ADDLIB_ATOMIC: "-latomic", DEBUG_CFLAGS: "-m32", LDFLAGS: "-m32" }
+          { name: x64, cc: gcc,   QUICTLS_EXTRA_ARGS: "", ADDLIB_ATOMIC: "", ARCH_FLAGS: "" },
+          { name: x64, cc: clang, QUICTLS_EXTRA_ARGS: "", ADDLIB_ATOMIC: "", ARCH_FLAGS: "" },
+          { name: x86, cc: gcc,   QUICTLS_EXTRA_ARGS: "-m32 linux-generic32", ADDLIB_ATOMIC: "-latomic", ARCH_FLAGS: "-m32" },
+          { name: x86, cc: clang, QUICTLS_EXTRA_ARGS: "-m32 linux-generic32", ADDLIB_ATOMIC: "-latomic", ARCH_FLAGS: "-m32" }
         ]
     name: ${{ matrix.platform.cc }}.${{ matrix.platform.name }}
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ jobs:
         make dev/hpack/decode dev/hpack/gen-enc dev/hpack/gen-rht
     - name: Compile HAProxy with ${{ matrix.platform.cc }}
       run: |
-        make -j3 CC=${{ matrix.platform.cc }} V=1 ERR=1 TARGET=linux-glibc USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_QUIC=1 USE_ZLIB=1 USE_PCRE=1 USE_PCRE_JIT=1 USE_LUA=1 USE_SYSTEMD=1 ADDLIB="${{ matrix.platform.ADDLIB_ATOMIC }} -Wl,-rpath,${HOME}/opt/lib" SSL_LIB=${HOME}/opt/lib SSL_INC=${HOME}/opt/include DEBUG_CFLAGS="${{ matrix.platform.DEBUG_CFLAGS }}" LDFLAGS="${{ matrix.platform.LDFLAGS }}"
+        make -j3 CC=${{ matrix.platform.cc }} V=1 ERR=1 TARGET=linux-glibc USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_QUIC=1 USE_ZLIB=1 USE_PCRE=1 USE_PCRE_JIT=1 USE_LUA=1 USE_SYSTEMD=1 ADDLIB="${{ matrix.platform.ADDLIB_ATOMIC }} -Wl,-rpath,${HOME}/opt/lib" SSL_LIB=${HOME}/opt/lib SSL_INC=${HOME}/opt/include ARCH_FLAGS="${{ matrix.platform.ARCH_FLAGS }}"
         make install
     - name: Show HAProxy version
       id: show-version
diff --git a/.github/workflows/musl.yml b/.github/workflows/musl.yml
index 930a22e01..a54414fab 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/musl.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/musl.yml
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ jobs:
       - name: Install VTest
         run: scripts/build-vtest.sh
       - name: Build
-        run: make -j$(nproc) TARGET=linux-musl DEBUG_CFLAGS='-ggdb3' CC=cc V=1 USE_LUA=1 LUA_INC=/usr/include/lua5.3 LUA_LIB=/usr/lib/lua5.3 USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_PCRE2=1 USE_PCRE2_JIT=1 USE_PROMEX=1
+        run: make -j$(nproc) TARGET=linux-musl ARCH_FLAGS='-ggdb3' CC=cc V=1 USE_LUA=1 LUA_INC=/usr/include/lua5.3 LUA_LIB=/usr/lib/lua5.3 USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_PCRE2=1 USE_PCRE2_JIT=1 USE_PROMEX=1
       - name: Show version
         run: ./haproxy -vv
       - name: Show linked libraries
diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index c13bd8186..48260e481 100644
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -605,19 +605,22 @@ flags are passed to the compiler nor what compiler is involved. Simply append
 details again. It is recommended to use this option when cross-compiling to
 verify that the paths are correct and that /usr/include is never involved.
 
-You may want to build specific target binaries which do not match your native
-compiler's target. This is particularly true on 64-bit systems when you want
-to build a 32-bit binary. Use the ARCH variable for this purpose. Right now
-it only knows about a few x86 variants (i386,i486,i586,i686,x86_64), two
-generic ones (32,64) and sets -m32/-m64 as well as -march=<arch> accordingly.
-This variable is only used to set ARCH_FLAGS to preset values, so if you know
-the arch-specific flags that your system needs, you may prefer to set
-ARCH_FLAGS instead. Note that these flags are passed both to the compiler and
-to the linker. For example, in order to build a 32-bit binary on an x86_64
-Linux system with SSL support without support for compression but when OpenSSL
+Some options require to be consistent between the compilation stage and the
+linking stage. This is the case for options which enable debugging (e.g. "-g"),
+profiling ("-pg"), link-time optimization ("-flto"), endianness ("-EB", "-EL"),
+bit width ("-m32", "-m64"), or code analyzers ("-fsanitize=address"). These
+options can be passed via the ARCH_FLAGS variable, which will be used at both
+stages during the build process, thus avoiding the risk of inconsistencies. By
+default, ARCH_FLAGS only contains "-g" to enable the generation of debug
+symbols. For example, in order to build a 32-bit binary on an x86_64 Linux
+system with SSL support without support for compression but when OpenSSL
 requires ZLIB anyway :
 
-    $ make TARGET=linux-glibc ARCH=i386 USE_OPENSSL=1 ADDLIB=-lz
+    $ make TARGET=linux-glibc ARCH_FLAGS="-m32 -g" USE_OPENSSL=1 ADDLIB=-lz
+
+and building with the address sanitizer (ASAN) simply requires:
+
+    $ make TARGET=linux-glibc ARCH_FLAGS="-fsanitize=address -g"
 
 Recent systems can resolve IPv6 host names using getaddrinfo(). This primitive
 is not present in all libcs and does not work in all of them either. Support in
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index cd5538f16..44d5bd9a8 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 # This GNU Makefile supports different OS and CPU combinations.
 #
 # You should use it this way :
-#   [g]make TARGET=os [ARCH=arch] [CFLAGS=...] USE_xxx=1 ...
+#   [g]make TARGET=os [CFLAGS=...] USE_xxx=1 ...
 #
 # When in doubt, invoke help, possibly with a known target :
 #   [g]make help
@@ -75,10 +75,10 @@
 # Variables useful for packagers :
 #   CC is set to "cc" by default and is used for compilation only.
 #   LD is set to "cc" by default and is used for linking only.
-#   ARCH may be useful to force build of 32-bit binary on 64-bit systems
 #   OPT_CFLAGS sets the default optimization level (-O2).
 #   CFLAGS may be used to append any flags for the C compiler.
 #   LDFLAGS is automatically set to -g and may be overridden.
+#   ARCH_FLAGS for flags common to both CC and LD. Defaults to -g.
 #   DEP may be cleared to ignore changes to include files during development
 #   DEBUG may be used to set some internal debugging options.
 #   ERR may be set to non-empty to pass -Werror to the compiler
@@ -163,12 +163,14 @@ $(warning Warning: the "CPU" variable was forced to "$(CPU)" but is no longer \
 endif
 endif
 
-#### Architecture, used when not building for native architecture
-# Use ARCH=<arch_name> to force build for a specific architecture. Known
-# architectures will lead to "-m32" or "-m64" being added to CFLAGS and
-# LDFLAGS. This can be required to build 32-bit binaries on 64-bit targets.
-# Currently, only 32, 64, x86_64, i386, i486, i586 and i686 are understood.
+#### No longer used
 ARCH =
+ifneq ($(ARCH),)
+$(warning Warning: the "ARCH" variable was forced to "$(ARCH)" but is no \
+  longer used and will be ignored. Please check the INSTALL file for other \
+  options, but usually in order to pass arch-specific options, ARCH_FLAGS, \
+  CFLAGS or LDFLAGS are preferred.)
+endif
 
 #### Toolchain options.
 CC = cc
@@ -271,15 +273,15 @@ EXTRA =
 # is better suited. The default is empty.
 CPU_CFLAGS        =
 
-#### ARCH dependent flags, may be overridden by CPU flags
-ARCH_FLAGS.32     = -m32
-ARCH_FLAGS.64     = -m64
-ARCH_FLAGS.i386   = -m32 -march=i386
-ARCH_FLAGS.i486   = -m32 -march=i486
-ARCH_FLAGS.i586   = -m32 -march=i586
-ARCH_FLAGS.i686   = -m32 -march=i686
-ARCH_FLAGS.x86_64 = -m64 -march=x86-64
-ARCH_FLAGS        = $(ARCH_FLAGS.$(ARCH))
+#### Architecture dependent flags.
+# These flags are passed both to the compiler and to the linker. A number of
+# settings may need to be passed to both tools, among which some arch-specific
+# options such as -m32 or -m64, some debugging options (-g), some profiling
+# options (-pg), some options affecting how the linkage is done (-flto), as
+# well as some code analysers such as -fsanitize=address. All of these make
+# sense here and will be consistently propagated to both stages. By default
+# only the debugging is enabled (-g).
+ARCH_FLAGS        = -g
 
 #### Extra CFLAGS
 # These CFLAGS are empty by default and are appended at the end of all the
@@ -1042,7 +1044,6 @@ src/calltrace.o: src/calltrace.c $(DEP)
 src/haproxy.o:	src/haproxy.c $(DEP)
 	$(cmd_CC) $(COPTS) \
 	      -DBUILD_TARGET='"$(strip $(TARGET))"' \
-	      -DBUILD_ARCH='"$(strip $(ARCH))"' \
 	      -DBUILD_CC='"$(strip $(CC))"' \
 	      -DBUILD_CFLAGS='"$(strip $(VERBOSE_CFLAGS))"' \
 	      -DBUILD_OPTIONS='"$(strip $(BUILD_OPTIONS))"' \