diff --git a/src/plugins/autotools/ide-autotools-make-stage.c b/src/plugins/autotools/ide-autotools-make-stage.c
index a9d5900f8e4a9281563fbfa1f8f183c626b4f362..a180e294c05cd324d413b9ace432ae2960009599 100644
--- a/src/plugins/autotools/ide-autotools-make-stage.c
+++ b/src/plugins/autotools/ide-autotools-make-stage.c
@@ -138,9 +138,9 @@ create_launcher (IdeAutotoolsMakeStage  *self,
    */
   if (dzl_str_equal0 ("all", make_target))
     {
-      ide_subprocess_launcher_setenv (launcher, "LANG", "C", TRUE);
-      ide_subprocess_launcher_setenv (launcher, "LC_ALL", "C", TRUE);
-      ide_subprocess_launcher_setenv (launcher, "LC_MESSAGES", "C", TRUE);
+      ide_subprocess_launcher_setenv (launcher, "LANG", "C.UTF-8", TRUE);
+      ide_subprocess_launcher_setenv (launcher, "LC_ALL", "C.UTF-8", TRUE);
+      ide_subprocess_launcher_setenv (launcher, "LC_MESSAGES", "C.UTF-8", TRUE);
     }
 
   return g_steal_pointer (&launcher);