diff --git a/parserutils/elements.py b/parserutils/elements.py
index <HASH>..<HASH> 100644
--- a/parserutils/elements.py
+++ b/parserutils/elements.py
@@ -897,7 +897,8 @@ def string_to_element(element_as_string, include_namespaces=False):
         # Let cElementTree handle the error
         return fromstring(element_as_string)
 
-    element_as_string = _XML_DECLARATION_REGEX.sub(u'', element_as_string, 1)
+    # For Python 2 compliance: replacement string must not specify unicode u''
+    element_as_string = _XML_DECLARATION_REGEX.sub('', element_as_string, 1)
 
     if not element_as_string:
         return None  # Same as ElementTree().getroot()
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index <HASH>..<HASH> 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ setup(
     name='parserutils',
     description='A collection of performant parsing utilities',
     keywords='parser,parsing,utils,utilities,collections,dates,elements,numbers,strings,url,xml',
-    version='0.9.1',
+    version='0.9.2',
     packages=[
         'parserutils', 'parserutils.tests'
     ],
Fix Python 2 compliance when converting binary content to element.