Using meson from debhelper when configure.ac is present

[Benjamin Redelings]

Hi,

    In my ITP for bali-phy, I ran into an issue, and I am wondering if 
there is a recommended way to resolve it.  The upstream source has both 
a meson build system and an autotools build system, but I would like to 
use the meson build system to build the debian package.

    Debhelper won't use the meson build system if configure.ac is 
present.  Is there a recommended way to force build using meson instead 
of autotools?

-thanks!

-BenRI