--- configure.ac
+++ configure.ac
@@ -1056,7 +1056,7 @@
       if test "x$PYTHON" = "x"; then
         use_python="No (python not available)"
       else
-        PYTHON_VERSION=`$PYTHON -V 2>&1 | $GREP Python | cut -d ' ' -f 2`
+        PYTHON_VERSION=`python -c "import sys; print '%d.%d' % (sys.version_info[[0:2]])"`
         if test "x$PYTHON_VERSION" = "x"; then
           PYTHON=
         else