diff --git a/meta/classes-recipe/image-locales-extension.bbclass b/meta/classes-recipe/image-locales-extension.bbclass
index c03f34c0..66f3ac8c 100644
--- a/meta/classes-recipe/image-locales-extension.bbclass
+++ b/meta/classes-recipe/image-locales-extension.bbclass
@@ -9,6 +9,11 @@
 LOCALE_GEN ?= "en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8\n\
                en_US ISO-8859-1\n"
 LOCALE_DEFAULT ?= "en_US.UTF-8"
+# set locale used during package installation, which is visible to
+# maintainer scripts (e.g. used in console-setup)
+export LANG = "${LOCALE_DEFAULT}"
+export LANGUAGE = "${LOCALE_DEFAULT}"
+export LC_ALL = "${LOCALE_DEFAULT}"
 
 def get_locale_gen(d, sep='\n'):
     locale_gen = d.getVar("LOCALE_GEN") or ""
diff --git a/meta/classes-recipe/rootfs.bbclass b/meta/classes-recipe/rootfs.bbclass
index d3b0d471..bbaafa01 100644
--- a/meta/classes-recipe/rootfs.bbclass
+++ b/meta/classes-recipe/rootfs.bbclass
@@ -93,10 +93,9 @@ def get_rootfs_distro(d):
 export E = "${@ isar_export_proxies(d)}"
 export DEBIAN_FRONTEND = "noninteractive"
 # To avoid Perl locale warnings:
-LOCALE_DEFAULT ??= "C"
-export LANG = "${LOCALE_DEFAULT}"
-export LANGUAGE = "${LOCALE_DEFAULT}"
-export LC_ALL = "${LOCALE_DEFAULT}"
+export LANG ??= "C"
+export LANGUAGE ??= "C"
+export LC_ALL ??= "C"
 
 # Execute a command against a rootfs and with isar-apt bind-mounted.
 # Additional mounts may be specified using --bind <source> <target> and a