Bug report

Bug description:

python -m venv aborts with [Errno 2] No such file or directory if the target directory already contains a stale venv whose interpreter symlinks point to aremoved Python install.
Re-running venv on an existing environment shouldrefresh those links instead of failing.

Reproducer

mkdir -p oldvenv/bin
ln -s /nonexistent/python3 oldvenv/bin/python3
python3 -m venv oldvenv

Actual behavior

Traceback ends with FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/tmp/oldvenv/bin/python3' during the chmod phase.

Expected behavior

venv should replace broken interpreter symlinks just as it overwrites other files when re-run on an existing directory (without requiring --clear).

CPython versions tested on:

3.13

Operating systems tested on:

Linux

Linked PRs

• gh-143768: rebuild broken interpreter symlinks #143770