diff --git a/templates/lxc-debian.in b/templates/lxc-debian.in
index d0a16773b..4dd491026 100644
--- a/templates/lxc-debian.in
+++ b/templates/lxc-debian.in
@@ -81,7 +81,7 @@ EOF
         chroot $rootfs update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8
     else
         encoding=$(echo $LANG | cut -d. -f2)
-        chroot $rootfs perl -pe "s/^# (${LANG} ${encoding})/\1/" \
+        chroot $rootfs sed -e "s/^# \(${LANG} ${encoding}\)/\1/" \
             -i /etc/locale.gen 2>/dev/null
         chroot $rootfs locale-gen $LANG $encoding
         chroot $rootfs update-locale LANG=$LANG