diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 1b057b0a..97a3a47b 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+ostree (2016.11-2) UNRELEASED; urgency=medium
+
+  * Force LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 during build, so that builds in non-English
+    locales can pass their build-time tests
+
+ -- Simon McVittie <smcv@debian.org>  Sat, 08 Oct 2016 15:37:36 +0100
+
 ostree (2016.11-1) unstable; urgency=medium
 
   * New upstream release
diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index 4bb9d8bb..a0edd3e4 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
 
 export DEB_BUILD_MAINT_OPTIONS = hardening=+all
 export DEB_LDFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND = -Wl,--as-needed
+# Some tests assert that we will see English strings
+export LC_ALL=C.UTF-8
 
 %:
 	dh $@ --with=gir