from locale import atof, setlocale, LC_NUMERIC
setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, '') # set to your default locale; for me this is
# 'English_Canada.1252'. Or you could explicitly specify a locale in which floats
# are formatted the way that you describe, if that's not how your locale works :)
atof('123,456') # 123456.0
# To demonstrate, let's explicitly try a locale in which the comma is a
# decimal point:
setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, 'French_Canada.1252')
atof('123,456') # 123.456