diff --git a/CMakeLists.txt b/CMakeLists.txt
index 3f491581b8..785e37e7d4 100644
--- a/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -608,8 +608,24 @@ foreach(_spell "ASPELL" "Enchant" "Hunspell")
   endif()
 endforeach()
 
+find_package(PythonInterp 2.7 QUIET)
+if(PYTHONINTERP_FOUND)
+  if(PYTHON_VERSION_STRING VERSION_GREATER 2.8)
+    unset(PYTHONINTERP_FOUND)
+  endif()
+endif()
+
+if (NOT PYTHONINTERP_FOUND)
+  unset(PYTHON_EXECUTABLE CACHE)
+  unset(PYTHON_VERSION_MAJOR)
+  unset(PYTHON_VERSION_MINOR)
+  unset(PYTHON_VERSION_STRING)
+  find_package(PythonInterp 3.3 REQUIRED)
+endif()
+
+set(LYX_PYTHON_EXECUTABLE ${PYTHON_EXECUTABLE} CACHE FILEPATH "Python to be used by LyX")
+
 if(LYX_NLS)
-	FIND_PROGRAM(LYX_PYTHON_EXECUTABLE python2 python HINTS ${GNUWIN32_DIR}/python)
 	find_package(LyXGettext)
 	if(LYX_PYTHON_EXECUTABLE AND GETTEXT_FOUND)
 		add_subdirectory(po "${TOP_BINARY_DIR}/po")