diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index 596f5ac711..8026a064c9 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -866,9 +866,11 @@ if host_machine.system() == 'cygwin' or host_machine.system() == 'windows'
 endif
 build_options_config.set_quoted('X', executable_suffix)
 
-python = import('python').find_installation('python3', required: get_option('python'))
-target_python = find_program('python3', native: false, required: python.found())
-if python.found()
+# Python is not used for our build system, but exclusively for git-p4.
+# Consequently we only need to determine whether Python is available for the
+# build target.
+target_python = find_program('python3', native: false, required: get_option('python'))
+if target_python.found()
   build_options_config.set('NO_PYTHON', '')
 else
   libgit_c_args += '-DNO_PYTHON'
@@ -1979,7 +1981,7 @@ if perl_features_enabled
   subdir('perl')
 endif
 
-if python.found()
+if target_python.found()
   scripts_python = [
     'git-p4.py'
   ]
@@ -2190,7 +2192,7 @@ summary({
   'iconv': iconv.found(),
   'pcre2': pcre2.found(),
   'perl': perl_features_enabled,
-  'python': python.found(),
+  'python': target_python.found(),
 }, section: 'Auto-detected features')
 
 summary({