Sorting list of string with specific locale in python

I work on an application that uses texts from different languages, so, for viewing or reporting purposes, some texts (strings) need to be sorted in a specific language.

Currently I have a workaround messing with the global locale settings, which is bad, and I don't want to put it in production:

default_locale = locale.getlocale(locale.LC_COLLATE)

def sort_strings(strings, locale_=None):
    if locale_ is None:
        return sorted(strings)

    locale.setlocale(locale.LC_COLLATE, locale_)
    sorted_strings = sorted(strings, cmp=locale.strcoll)
    locale.setlocale(locale.LC_COLLATE, default_locale)

    return sorted_strings

The official python locale documentation explicitly says that saving and restoring is a bad idea, but does not give any suggestions: http://docs.python.org/library/locale.html#background-details-hints-tips-and-caveats