In this article, we prove the exponential stabilization of the semilinear wave equation with a damping effective in a zone satisfying the geometric control condition only. The nonlinearity is assumed to be subcritical, defocusing and analytic. The main novelty compared to previous results, is the proof of a unique continuation result in large time for some undamped equation. The idea is to use an asymptotic smoothing effect proved by Hale and Raugel in the context of dynamical systems. Then, once the analyticity in time is proved, we apply a unique continuation result with partial analyticity due to Robbiano, Zuily, Tataru and Hörmander. Some other consequences are also given for the controllability and the existence of a compact attractor.
